Wishfully, Wanting, Wednesday

I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite things from Etsy.  I tell you if I won the lottery I would be sorely tempted to buy a lot of things from Etsy - so many great artists!

Country Winter

Moon Standing Stone in Celtic Landscape

Fairy Door Slide Top Tin

Simple Truth Pendants - Custom Made

Desert Sunset - by Kristen on My Bead Journey

Brown Leather Weekender Tote - so in love with this bag!

Beautifully Broken Me - Nov ABS Piece (Awesome!)

So, these are some of my wishfully, wanting on a Wednesday.  Aren't they all fantastic! 

Giveaway - beads and a bowl

 Also I wanted to remind you all of our giveaway this coming Saturday, so there is still time to participate.  Head on over to this blog post and see what you gotta do.  Mom and I plan on doing the drawing around 10am on Saturday and all you gotta do is leave us a comment and a way to contact you if you win.  So, jump on board the giveaway train!

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!

After Black Friday Madness Giveaway & Nov ABS Piece

It is the day after the madness of Black Friday - Yeah!  Mom and I promised a giveaway and here it is.

We are going to giveaway one of our "ThumBOWLina" bowls and some of our beads.  The bowl colors are transparent yellow's in the center and transparent greens on the outer edge.  The beads are blue (6) and pink (3).

All you have to do to participate is leave us a comment and a way to contact you if you are the winner.

You can even enter extra times by blogging about our giveaway or Facebooking about the giveaway.  But make sure you leave us comments that you either blogged or Facebooked so we can enter your name for the extra drawings.

We will have the drawaing on December 3rd around 10am Eastern.  I will either have mom draw a name out of a hat or see if we can get Lily or Zola to draw a name for us.  So, get to commenting or blogging to enter to win.

This months ABS Challenge piece is called Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni by Marie Spartali Stillman, Watercolor, gouache and gum arabic.

Mom had the idea of using a set of roses we hadn't enameled yet and acid etch beads to create our piece for this months challenge.

Both mom and I really liked the colors in this month's painting.  I decided to enamel the roses in ivory and spruce green.  Not my usual style (usually like lots and lots of colors), but I am happy with the way the color of the roses turned out.

I made beads with ivory glass and frit and then I acid etched them.  I really like the muted look of the beads and they went perfectly with the painting.

I love the accent beads (pearls and Czech beads) mom used to accent the necklace and then finishing it off with a Sterling Silver toggle "Leaf" clasp.  Mom does an awesome job of creating jewelry, even though that is not her favorite thing to do. 

So, that is our piece for this months challenge.

I plan on posting some pendants and a set of beads on Etsy tomorrow, so keep your eyes open for that.

Make sure you leave us a comment so you can be entered into our drawing.

Had to Share This

As many of you know I am an Army vet and I am very proud to be an Army vet.

A friend of mine shared this on Facebook and I had to share it also.

The WVU Marching Band did a wickedly awesome job and I am super impressed with it!

I have been thinking a lot of what I can do to help military vets.  I have been seriously impressed with Florida State University and their new Vet Center.  They announced this initiative on Veteran's Day and this has been all I can think about.

A few weeks ago I went to a meeting of Purdue faculty/staff veteran's about being mentor's to veterans who are going to school at Purdue.  They want to give the veteran's a person they can go to for help in studies or other areas.  During the meeting I was coming up with tons of ideas for fundraising and names of people the president of the Veteran's Student Organization can go to and ask for help on how to raise money for the student organization because they are using grants (as you know grants don't last forever).  Mom said, when she saw me, I was lit up like a 1000 watt light bulb.  I felt like I was doing something and doing something good.

I am working on writing up a proposal to do something at Purdue like they are doing at Florida State University.  I don't know if it will go anywhere but this is something I am really interested in.  I have been trying to find statistics and numbers to make the proposal look professional and I think I know who I need to talk with, so maybe next year something can be done for our Purdue alum vets and our vets currently attending school.  Who knows, you never know what is going to happen day to day.

Not Feel So Good - Both of Us

Image from Pinterest

Mom and I aren't feeling too good this week.  I had a migraine and I think I had the stomach flu on top of that.

Image from Pinterest

And then mom started to feel sick on Friday night and she looked like death warmed over yesterday and today she is still in bed.

So, nothing new is going on because neither one of us are doing anything.  I came over to her house and saw her trying to work on the November ABS challenge piece and I yelled at her to get back into bed.

I hope you all are feeling better than we have been.  We (meaning me) hope to have some things posted before Black Friday.  We are also planning on announcing our giveaway (since we haven't had one in forever) on Friday, so stay tuned for that.  Have a great weekend and feel good!

I Heart Macro - A Review of Favorites

I know it is early, but mom and I have the last day of the show tomorrow, though we don't have to be there until 1:00pm but I plan on sleeping in dang it!  Here it is, another I Heart Macro Sunday.  I do have to say this is my favorite part of the week because I love, love, love seeing what everyone is doing with their macro shots.

Since mom and I have a show tomorrow and it is starting to get so blasted cold, I thought I would do a review of our (really my) favorite shot of flowers this year.

Here we go:

Both of these flowers are Pin Cushion flowers.  I love how they sort of sparkle near the center of the flower and I just love the ruffles on the petals!!!

Close up of a Spider Plant.

A series of butterfly pictures mom took.  I love how you see all the pollen layered on the wings.  Mom did a wonderful job taking these pictures!

Unknown flower - just love the pink and yellow colors!

These pictures were taken on July 1st of lilies in mom's front yard. It had just finished raining, so I grabbed my camera and went around the yard taking photographs of all the flowers with rain drops on them.

I just love being able to see the pollen on the stamens of these lilies!

These are the last of the flowers I will bore you with.  These photos are from the last time mom and I went to the hort park that is located near where I work, sometime in the middle of October.  I still couldn't believe how many flowers were still blooming.  I loved the contrast of the flowers that were dead or dying and the ones that were still blooming.

Okay, mom and I have a question.  We are looking for a company to have our photos printed, to eventually sell.  We have found a few places but the prices are a little steep for these two poor girls budgets.  Does anyone have any recommendations?  I am also looking to improve my photography, can anyone recommend any good blogs or forums I can go to?  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I hope you all have a lovely rest of your weekend!  If I think about it, I will take pictures of the venue we had our show at.  These people sure do know how to do it (especially after 31 years).  I also have an announcement I will make about a class coming, in the Lafayette, IN area that all lampworkers will surely like to know about!!!!  Also, mom and I plan on having a giveaway in two weeks - on Black Friday, so make sure you stay tuned for that.  Okay, okay, okay I am done now.  Peace out!

Happy Veteran's Day and a Show

Happy Veteran's Day to all of those who served and those we are still serving!

Me in the field at Fort Hood - Love my doo rag :)

Mom and I just got back from Applebee's where I received a free meal for being a veteran.  I am so proud to have served and thanks for all the companies and restaurants who are serving free meals to all of our veterans!

Me at PLDC dinner night before graduation

In two days it will be also 20 years since I went to basic training.  On November 12th, grandpa Lee and my best friend Crystal drove me to Indy to spend the night in a hotel and the next day, bright and early, I was loaded in a bus and then a plan to head out to Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  Wow, where did the time go?  And dang, I was skinny!!!! :)

Tonight, tomorrow and Sunday mom have a show at the Frankfort Public Library.  This is their fund raising event and it is a big one.  This is our second year participating in the show and we love it!  Today, at 5:00pm they will open the doors to the patrons for about two hours before they will open the doors to the public.  The patrons will come early, and even set up chairs so they can be the first ones in line.  The more people the merrier I say!  This is mom setting up the one table we get, so we go up to try and put out as much inventory as possible.  I also stay out of moms way when she is setting up, she gets a little psycho.

Left side of the table

Right side of the table

The whole table

I am just going to finish up this post with a couple of images.  One is of a bowl mom just finished up called "Fairy Jewels".  I don't think I showed off the rosary and bracelet I made for a friend's 60th birthday.  I think I talked about it but never showed pictures.  What I did was use the birthstone colors of her two children and her four grandchildren to make the beads.  I also mixed the colors of her two children to make the cross.  I love making rosaries like that, using birthstone colors to make it personal for that person.

Czech glass beads are the dew drops on the flower

Top view - colors used were transparent yellows and purples

Here is the rosary and bracelet.  I made the bracelet out of the extra beads I had.

Five Decade Rosary

Close up of the cross

Well, that is it for now.  I will be taking more pictures tonight and this weekend and I plan on sharing. 

Again, Happy Veteran's Day and thank you all for serving!